loose skin

lisaabenjamin

A friend of mine has lost half her body weight (down from over 20 stone to 10 stone - incredible!). She lost the weight fairly slowly through diet and exercise, but she has a lot of loose skin, especially on her stomach and arms. She's awesome because she's actually pretty cool with it. She used to stress about it, but says she eventually realised that there was no way she could have been that overweight for so long without having done some kind of damage to her body - and for her, a bit of loose skin is way better than heart disease, or diabetes, or some of the other obesity-related problems she could have had.

Edited to add: PS don't bother with the scrub and wrap treatments! All they do is make you sweat out water. This has the temporary effect of making your skin feel tighter, which is fine if you want to slim a little to fit into a dress for a night out, but it's not going to be a long term solution. Applying vaseline or coffee grinds or whatever to your skin is just going to make you feel greasy and smell like coffee - it's not going to magically eliminate the excess skin cells.

caroldavison332

Vase line is a of your greasing or coffee in it up. petroleum product. I moisturize with olive oil because 8 ve heard vase line cab give you liver cancer. It makes sense that a stretched out shoe (leather) doesn't go back to its original siZee regardless

nmncare

bumping this in case I need it.

sweetpea03b

I have a total of a little under 100lbs to lose and i spoke to my GP about minimalizing loose skin. He said the main things to do are.

Lose the weight slowly, this gives time for the skin to snap back while the weight comes off.
Drink lot's of water! This keeps your skin tight, elastic and your body healthy
Eat heaps of veggies, make sure you are getting enough good nutrients .
And do some well balanced exercise, a good mix of strength training and cardio.

At the end of the day genetics, age, weight and a few other things will contribute but doing the things above will give you a good fighting chance of minimalizing it as much as you can and also it will keep you healthy.


I've set for my loss to take over 24months. So far 35ish to go and my skin is looking pretty good. Just need to keep upping my water as i always drink too little.

All the best!:flowerforyou:

Agreed. I have been losing weight VERY slowly (1/4lb to 1/2lb each week usually) and although I've got stretch marks I don't seem to have too much sagginess going on (except the dreaded saddle bags **sigh** I fear they will be with me forever). But then, I never got above 200lbs at my highest. Good luck!

rileysowner

I didn't read the whole thread so I don't know if this link was posted http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1164025-loose-skin-the-real-deal

40DayFit

bump

knra_grl

Good genetics aside, there are ways to help heal the elasticity of the skin without major surgery or big $$$. During the course of my personal weight loss (and having a baby), I reverted to using skin therapy as taught to me in massage therapy. Long story short, I use a combination of coffee scrubs and home made body wraps to help with the sagging.

The key is to combat gravity and the skin's own healing process (which is undoubtedly a slow one). Here's the recipes I use incase you want to try them.

Coffee Scrub:
Coffee Grounds
Olive Oil
Essential Oil (optional, vit E, lavender and clove extracts are nice)

Body Wrap:
Betonite Clay
Olive Oil
Epsom Salt
(Slather on body or problem areas. Wrap tight with ceran wrap or ace bandages, and either let sit for an hour or go to bed with it on)

Other wrap recipes are stupid simple, as easy as using Vaseline (or something like it) and wrapping yourself up. To the most complex, turmeric, cayenne pepper, coffee, and rice. You'll find the recipe that works best for you. I prefer the one above because it also helps draw out toxins. I've lost inches this way, and they don't come back so long as you continue with your diet and exercise.

Good luck.

I call bs! You are so full of it. Pics or it didn't happen. Now put up or shut up. Yeah I am being rude but I just dont care, you cant go around giving people false hope. It is just setting them on to the path of gaining the weight back.

My pics http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1164025-loose-skin-the-real-deal

AGREE!

It can be possible that these people did not have "loose skin" or as much as some would - there is something to be said for properly taking care of your skin in order for it to be healthy and moisturized and maintain its elasticity - while people who have a LOT to lose may not see the benefits as much others will benefit by caring for themselves properly - we spend all this time logging foods and balancing our diets and exercising to lose the weight - I don't see anything wrong with adding skin care to our regime? Perhaps it's not for some people but I would try it - not really for the benefit of getting rid of loose skin (not sure how much I will have at my goal weight) but for the benefit of a healthy, moisturized skin. I am thinking at my age and with the amount of weight loss I have to go I will definately have some loose skin but taking care of it would only benefit me now and later :flowerforyou:

LianaG1115

I'm down from 275 to 188, OMG its gone down some but it's saggier...I'm hoping that more goes away but with about 57 more lbs to lose I'm thinking that I may be seeing a plastic surgeon after all is said and done.

mazmol

Good genetics aside, there are ways to help heal the elasticity of the skin without major surgery or big $$$. During the course of my personal weight loss (and having a baby), I reverted to using skin therapy as taught to me in massage therapy. Long story short, I use a combination of coffee scrubs and home made body wraps to help with the sagging.

The key is to combat gravity and the skin's own healing process (which is undoubtedly a slow one). Here's the recipes I use incase you want to try them.

Coffee Scrub:
Coffee Grounds
Olive Oil
Essential Oil (optional, vit E, lavender and clove extracts are nice)

Body Wrap:
Betonite Clay
Olive Oil
Epsom Salt
(Slather on body or problem areas. Wrap tight with ceran wrap or ace bandages, and either let sit for an hour or go to bed with it on)

Other wrap recipes are stupid simple, as easy as using Vaseline (or something like it) and wrapping yourself up. To the most complex, turmeric, cayenne pepper, coffee, and rice. You'll find the recipe that works best for you. I prefer the one above because it also helps draw out toxins. I've lost inches this way, and they don't come back so long as you continue with your diet and exercise.

Good luck.

Thanks for sharing